Two guilty in mortgage fraud

The scheme used straw buyers to purchase homes in the southwest metro at inflated prices.

By LORA PABST, Star Tribune

Last update: December 18, 2008 - 10:12 PM

Two metro-area men have been found guilty of racketeering and multiple counts of theft in Hennepin County District Court for their role in one of the state's largest mortgage fraud cases, worth approximately $100 million.

Shinon Lindberg, of Greenwood, and Scott R. Rosenlund, of Chaska, were convicted by a Hennepin County jury Thursday. The case signifies an intensified effort by Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to prosecute mortgage fraud cases.

Over the past year, county and federal investigators have filed a series of charges against mortgage fraud rings that have operated across the metro area, from rural and suburban communities to inner-city neighborhoods.

This scheme played out in several southwest metro suburbs and involved buying properties and reselling them to straw buyers for inflated prices.

Rosenlund, president of 10Spring Homes, a home-building and development company, and Lindberg, who recruited straw buyers for the properties, were accused of orchestrating the scheme along with mortgage broker Celeste Skaar, of Orono. Skaar pleaded guilty this spring to one count of racketeering.

The three were accused of inflating the incomes of the straw buyers in order to qualify them for mortgages, according to the criminal charges. They told the buyers that the properties would be resold and their loans would be repaid, but instead they kept the profits and the homes would fall into foreclosure.

Lindberg and Rosenlund will be sentenced in February.

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628

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